Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood (Quentin Tarantino, 2019)

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senseabove
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Re: Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood (Quentin Tarantino, 2019)

#701 Post by senseabove » Tue Aug 06, 2019 2:11 am

Jack Kubrick wrote:
Tue Aug 06, 2019 12:42 am
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood: Tarantino's Best Film.


By the notorious Armond White.
All things considered, that's not as scathing as I'd expect. But:
These tense, lewd scenes (anchored to Margaret Qualley’s Pussycat, a brazen free-love druggie, Dakota Fanning’s fanatical Squeaky Fromme, and Rick’s meeting with a precocious child star, loaded with pedophiliac undertones.) suggest more than Manson’s psychotic influence.
Uh.... did anyone else get that?

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starmanof51
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Re: Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood (Quentin Tarantino, 2019)

#702 Post by starmanof51 » Tue Aug 06, 2019 4:37 am

senseabove wrote:
Tue Aug 06, 2019 2:11 am
Uh.... did anyone else get that?
Nope! Not in the least.

black&huge
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Re: Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood (Quentin Tarantino, 2019)

#703 Post by black&huge » Tue Aug 06, 2019 5:26 am

Nope. There are many things wrong with that statement. Many.

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willoneill
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Re: Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood (Quentin Tarantino, 2019)

#704 Post by willoneill » Tue Aug 06, 2019 6:47 am

White also uses his description of Bruce Dern’s George Spahn to infer that Harvey Weinstein was merely a “victim of his own as well as female opportunists” so ... there’s that.

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Roger Ryan
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Re: Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood (Quentin Tarantino, 2019)

#705 Post by Roger Ryan » Tue Aug 06, 2019 8:23 am

senseabove wrote:
Mon Aug 05, 2019 5:03 pm
...I was pretty shocked by the violence in the FBI TV show. I'm a young'n, relatively speaking, still getting to grips with the whole evolution of acceptable media content over the course of the 20th century, but I'm mildly fascinated by that progression, and a shotgun to the face of military personnel, including blood splatter, on primetime television, definitely did not fit the loose narrative I have in my head, especially a mere year and a half after Bonnie & Clyde...
Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm fairly certain that FBI footage was created entirely by Tarantino to showcase the "villain" role for Rick. While there was a certain looseness regarding violence on TV and in movies during the late 60s/early 70s (the significantly violent Beneath the Planet of the Apes receiving a "G" rating, for example), the graphic nature of that scene is a departure from how The FBI normally handled violence.


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Ovader
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Re: Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood (Quentin Tarantino, 2019)

#707 Post by Ovader » Tue Aug 06, 2019 9:29 am

That FBI episode titled "All the Streets Are Silent" was broadcast in November 1965 so it was pre Bonnie & Clyde and the violence controversy of 1967. Here is the clip referenced in the film.

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Re: Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood (Quentin Tarantino, 2019)

#708 Post by bearcuborg » Tue Aug 06, 2019 9:53 am

Well, I have no choice but to see this now, my latest issue of Mad Magazine spoofs the TV western from the film. Might as well pick it up folks, there’s only a few new ones left.

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mfunk9786
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Re: Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood (Quentin Tarantino, 2019)

#709 Post by mfunk9786 » Tue Aug 06, 2019 10:22 am

It's an advertising tie-in of some kind, because that cover of Mad is featured in the film as well

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Murdoch
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Re: Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood (Quentin Tarantino, 2019)

#710 Post by Murdoch » Tue Aug 06, 2019 11:49 am

Armond White wrote:A plot digression features Bruce Dern as a blind, wizened, weakened victim of his own lusts as well as of female opportunists, a Harvey Weinstein figure.
Oh lord
Last edited by Murdoch on Tue Aug 06, 2019 11:53 am, edited 2 times in total.

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Roger Ryan
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Re: Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood (Quentin Tarantino, 2019)

#711 Post by Roger Ryan » Tue Aug 06, 2019 11:52 am

Ovader wrote:
Tue Aug 06, 2019 9:29 am
That FBI episode titled "All the Streets Are Silent" was broadcast in November 1965 so it was pre Bonnie & Clyde and the violence controversy of 1967. Here is the clip referenced in the film.
Thanks for the correction - I'm starting to get used to being wrong in my observations on this film! Seeing it again, I realize the scene is not quite as graphic as I remember it being, but still...

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mfunk9786
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Re: Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood (Quentin Tarantino, 2019)

#712 Post by mfunk9786 » Tue Aug 06, 2019 1:51 pm

I was blown away to find out that Lancer was a real series, although from what I can gather, the script for the pilot that Dalton is shooting is Tarantino's invention.

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swo17
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Re: Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood (Quentin Tarantino, 2019)

#713 Post by swo17 » Tue Aug 06, 2019 2:15 pm

Yeah, Perry and Olyphant were portraying the real-life stars of that show

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therewillbeblus
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Re: Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood (Quentin Tarantino, 2019)

#714 Post by therewillbeblus » Tue Aug 06, 2019 2:31 pm

Which is why this moment was so affecting:
Roger Ryan wrote:
Mon Jul 29, 2019 10:24 am
One very subtle touch that gave me a chill...
SpoilerShow
...was the final shot of James Stacy leaving the set on his motorcycle. As some viewers may know, a 1973 accident involving a drunk driver striking Stacy on his motorcycle killed his girlfriend and resulted in Stacy losing an arm and leg.

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mfunk9786
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Re: Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood (Quentin Tarantino, 2019)

#715 Post by mfunk9786 » Tue Aug 06, 2019 2:34 pm

Oh, I knew about Stacy, but I guess I didn't have enough familiarity with his career to know about Lancer. Just figured it was an invented pilot of Tarantino's (wouldn't be his first!)

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Re: Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood (Quentin Tarantino, 2019)

#716 Post by swo17 » Tue Aug 06, 2019 2:38 pm

Fox Force Five was real though

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Black Hat
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Re: Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood (Quentin Tarantino, 2019)

#717 Post by Black Hat » Tue Aug 06, 2019 3:18 pm

Is anybody reading the Tom O'Neill book about the Manson case? I'm 15% thru it and it is absolutely riveting. For the last 20 years he's asked and in his reporting attempted to answer obvious questions about the case, but interestingly finds the narrative we know is far from the truth and two, very few people are willing to talk. The pieces of his interview with Bugliosi I've read so far read as a terrifying encounter between someone hiding something vs someone wanting to find out that something on a Parallax View level. He has Elke Sommer, Joanna Petter and Polanski's manager at the time, Bill Tennant, on the record absolutely roasting Polanski. Tennant also interestingly outright rejects the notion that these murders represented the loss of anything...
Bill Tennant wrote:There was nothing innocent about it. It was retribution. He who dies with the most toys wins. I think it's pretty self-serving to that period, and what was going on, innocent... What's innocent about drugs? What's innocent about promiscuous sex?... You tell me where the innocence was. Nobody cared or gave a shit about Sharon Tate. Not because they weren't nice but because she was expendable. As expendable as an actor whoe option comes up and gets dropped.
I'd really recommend the book.

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mfunk9786
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Re: Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood (Quentin Tarantino, 2019)

#718 Post by mfunk9786 » Tue Aug 06, 2019 3:32 pm

Bill Tennant sounds like a real piece of shit, thanks for convincing me to skip the book

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Black Hat
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Re: Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood (Quentin Tarantino, 2019)

#719 Post by Black Hat » Tue Aug 06, 2019 3:38 pm

Everything he says about the industry is true and as documented in a million other places has been true from its inception so I have no clue what bothers you about him saying it about 1969 or Sharon Tate.

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mfunk9786
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Re: Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood (Quentin Tarantino, 2019)

#720 Post by mfunk9786 » Tue Aug 06, 2019 3:44 pm

"What's innocent about drugs? What's innocent about promiscuous sex?" - I'd watch CourtTV in 1995 if I wanted to hear this line of reasoning from somebody - I realize he's not the author of the book and that he's also dead, but that ridiculous quote is certainly a specious sales tactic for whatever revisionist argument the book is trying to formulate

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Black Hat
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Re: Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood (Quentin Tarantino, 2019)

#721 Post by Black Hat » Tue Aug 06, 2019 4:02 pm

Specious sales tactic? You're reading way too much into it, it's my own quoting of the book which again is said in response to a question about those murders being the day innocence left Hollywood and is a huge theme of Tarantino's movie.

I don't think your criticisms here are fair or well reasoned and in fact are rather specious on your part.

I'd suggest downloading a sample of the book to see for yourself because it's quite good and meticulously reported.

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Roger Ryan
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Re: Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood (Quentin Tarantino, 2019)

#722 Post by Roger Ryan » Tue Aug 06, 2019 4:22 pm

mfunk9786 wrote:
Tue Aug 06, 2019 2:34 pm
Oh, I knew about Stacy, but I guess I didn't have enough familiarity with his career to know about Lancer. Just figured it was an invented pilot of Tarantino's (wouldn't be his first!)
While the script is probably fabricated, the Lancer pilot episode was, indeed, directed by Sam Wanamaker! After being dismayed with the egregious anachronisms and errors in the recent biopics Bohemian Rhapsody and Rocketman, it was a thrill to see Tarantino nail these kind of details, even if it was in his own revisionist fashion.

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Re: Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood (Quentin Tarantino, 2019)

#723 Post by Nasir007 » Wed Aug 07, 2019 10:41 am

Black Hat wrote:
Tue Aug 06, 2019 3:18 pm
Is anybody reading the Tom O'Neill book about the Manson case? I'm 15% thru it and it is absolutely riveting. For the last 20 years he's asked and in his reporting attempted to answer obvious questions about the case, but interestingly finds the narrative we know is far from the truth and two, very few people are willing to talk. The pieces of his interview with Bugliosi I've read so far read as a terrifying encounter between someone hiding something vs someone wanting to find out that something on a Parallax View level. He has Elke Sommer, Joanna Petter and Polanski's manager at the time, Bill Tennant, on the record absolutely roasting Polanski. Tennant also interestingly outright rejects the notion that these murders represented the loss of anything...
Bill Tennant wrote:There was nothing innocent about it. It was retribution. He who dies with the most toys wins. I think it's pretty self-serving to that period, and what was going on, innocent... What's innocent about drugs? What's innocent about promiscuous sex?... You tell me where the innocence was. Nobody cared or gave a shit about Sharon Tate. Not because they weren't nice but because she was expendable. As expendable as an actor whoe option comes up and gets dropped.
I'd really recommend the book.
Doesn't the quote knock down any resonance this film might have?

For the film's premise to work for you - you need to believe that Tate's murder was an epochal moment, a line in the sand, a moment that changed history, a moment that resulted in the loss of something beautiful and sacred in the world. Something was truly lost that day forever. That the loss of old Hollywood is a devastating tragedy and we are all as a human race the poorer for it.

What if you don't buy this premise or come to not believe in it. Where would that leave you with the film.

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swo17
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Re: Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood (Quentin Tarantino, 2019)

#724 Post by swo17 » Wed Aug 07, 2019 10:47 am

Uh, all you need to believe for the film to work is that Sharon Tate didn't deserve to die

Nasir007
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Re: Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood (Quentin Tarantino, 2019)

#725 Post by Nasir007 » Wed Aug 07, 2019 10:51 am

Death is, unfortunately, a fact of life. We have it all around us. Nobody deserves to die - if that could be helped.

The film definitely wants you to believe that beyond the regrettable death of a human being, which is by itself a common occurrence in Tarantino's films, Tate's death was a transformative moment that evolved culture forever - for the negative, and only its undoing could make us whole again.

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